More Art Basel Shoes

Travels with the Design DivaDesigner and writer Michelle Newman documents her world travels in pursuit of adventure, design inspiration, and exotic destinations. This insightful journey leads her to indigenous and ancient cultures in remote places where there are life lessons to be learned.

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY MICHELLE NEWMAN

Just like sex, chocolate and ice cream, you can never have enough shoes. So back we go to the constant shoe parade at Art Basel … day or night fabulous designer shoes were always in sight continuing to dazzle, provoke and provide entertainment.

Being at Art Basel was like seeing the pages of Vogue come to life before your very eyes. However shoe fetishes are nothing new; women and men have always been into shoes. Historically shoes have not only been functional necessities, but works of art that were embroidered, embellished and encrusted with semi-precious gems.

The golden sandals of the Pharaohs and the exquisitely embroidered 3-inch satin slippers that Chinese concubines wore are examples of how long ago shoes were status symbols and were used to define social levels. Foot binding was considered ultimate erotica by Chinese men; any gal who wanted to marry well had better have teeny-weeny footsies, otherwise she could wind up an old maid. This practice of foot binding continued for 1,000 years, until the Chinese government banned it in 1912. There are still some Chinese women alive with their crippled arches and painful lotus feet hobbling around. Chinese men controlled women by foot binding so women could not wander off.

In other cultures, such as Turkey and Venice, elevated elaborate wooden clog-like sandals on stilts were worn in the Medieval times to keep brocade silk gowns out of the mud and filth. Fast forward to Louis XIV and the French court in Versailles, where men were the peacocks and wore dainty silk pumps with French heels, frilly bows and gorgeous buckles to balls and fetes. The 1920s flappers shoes were fabulously decorative with Art Deco motifs.

Beginning in the 1950s, the French shoe designer Roger Vivier is credited with being the one to create the stiletto heel, and since then has created some of the prettiest shoes for Queen Elizabeth, Catherine Deneuve, Ava Gardner and other high profiles ladies. His shoes are so drop-dead gorgeous that they are treated as serious art and displayed in leading art museums throughout the world like the Met in New York, The Louvre in Paris, and the Albert and Victoria in London.

Fashionistas and art museums know best, so it’s no wonder shoes and Art Basel are such a good fit and belong together. And so the shoe legend and obsession continues to live on at Miami’s Art Basel.